The Bush administration has no problem using dead bodies to market their reelection, especially if they're from Sept. 11, 2001 — which means they're almost guaranteed to make you squirt a few while you ponder your choices for November.
(Let's see — a dirty hippie three rows behind "Hanoi" Jane Fonda -vs- Top Gun Boy strutting around an aircraft carrier wearing a sock-stuffed codpiece? Hmmm...?)
But according to the Bush Administration's Ministry of Orwellian Manipulation, images of dead bodies returning from Iraq are forbidden; Bush's marketing consultants don't think all the news from Iraq should be shown to the American Public — just the good news, please.
("See those new schools, hospitals, highways, and satellite dishes? No, silly, that's not America; America looks like Beirut on a bad day. That's the NEW IRAQ! Brought to you by... um... YOU! Look and enjoy the view, 'cause you paid $87 billion for that beautiful landscape!)
No, this Administration doesn't "do" bad news, even if that means lying to the American public. And short of lying, they just distort the truth or 'hide' things.
Things like coffins arriving from Baghdad — and tearful families whose relatives died so Mohammed and Abdullah could have the freedom to vote for a theocracy, start a civil war, listen to disco, and watch reruns of "Dynasty".
Nope, no mourning allowed — just weepy wives hugging and kissing husbands still bearing all their major limbs. No wailing, no draped flags, no flowers, and no coffins — unless, of course, it's a dead fireman from 9/11 in a Bush reelection TV ad.
from
KNIGHT RIDDER
- Six hundred protestors — including families of soldiers killed in Iraq — marched in Dover, DE, yesterday "to protest the war and complain about restricted access to installations, like Dover, where the bodies of those killed in Iraq are returned." The major point of contention: "Several family members said it's...wrong for the Pentagon to prevent people from witnessing the return of the remains of soldiers killed in Iraq to American soil. The media have been barred from covering the arrival of remains at Dover, which has the military's largest mortuary, since 1991. Before the start of the Iraq war last March, the Pentagon expanded the no-coverage rule to its installations worldwide. Critics contend the Bush administration did this to keep pictures of flag-draped coffins being unloaded from planes from possibly undermining public support for the war."
Article comments
1 - Eric Olsen
Sharky, my focused like a laser beam friend, all administrations attempt to control their image and manipulate the news - spin has been around for some time. Lying is unacceptable and the public takes it seriously, but massaging, spinning, and presenting one's own side in the best possible light is totally par for the course and people expect it and account for it.
2 - Shark
Eric,
yeah, I know -- and I've been writing this kinda stuff since Nixon.
Every now and then, two opposite spins end up with a static object that one can see without an accompanying blur or distortion.
Sorta the Frisbee of Knowledge effect.
3 - Tom
This rule about not showing bodies coming back from war was in place since the Clinton administration.
You're blind hatred for Bush makes you totally unaware of facts.
4 - Craig Lyndall
It is convenient for Bush that he doesn't have to show flag-draped coffins to be completely honest, but he is not responsible for the rule, apparently. I wonder if there is such a thing as fair and balanced in this world. It isn't on Fox. It probably doesn't exist.
5 - Shark
Tom, it was instigated by George I during Iraq War I.
PS: My hatred is real, but not blind.
6 - Craig Lyndall
Shark, how can your hatred not make you blind? If you just calmed down and admitted that there is no such thing as an absolute black and white judgement, you would be better off. I understand criticisms, but this all or nothing attitude is insane.
7 - Eric Olsen
But as Faye Dunaway says in the legendary Dunston Checks In, "Obsessives are the only ones who get anything done."
8 - Joe
Holy @#$%@#$! Faye Dunaway! Who the hell turned her on to Michael Jackson's plastic surgeon? Back in the day...
Man, that's just sad.
9 - Shark
Craig, I'm calm, I'm calm. You should see my *blood pressure. It's perfect!
*my doc tells me it's because I constantly vent my spleen, while the calm ones are the folks who keel over with a stroke.
Let it out, babe!
10 - Shark
Oh, and don't forget that SHARK was the one who organized those angry family members who marched in Dover, DE.
I have minions everywhere -- spreading my blind hatred and black and white judgements.
Gotta run - I have an election to throw in Spain!
11 - JR
Remember, if you're not with Shark, you're against Shark.
12 - Al Barger
I'll defend Shark here. I don't have his hatred for Bush, and I think he can be a bit on the pinko side.
However, he is fair minded. Not liking Bush doesn't mean that he's blind. I bet that Shark would, for example, readily acknowledge that there have been some significant positive benefits to the Iraq war- even if he doesn't think they're enough to justify the excursion.
Notice that Shark isn't going around screaming childish nonsense that Bush is Hitler and so on. His criticisms here are well within reason, whether you happen to agree with them or not.
They are based on actual facts, specific issues about access to military installations and such. They are not just wild name calling, or unsubstantiated conspiracy theories or dumb Freudian speculation.
13 - Shark
JR: "Remember, if you're not with Shark, you're against Shark."
JR, that doesn't surprise me, coming from a neo-confederate, bigoted, loony, misogynist! I bet you own slaves!
...um... wait... I think I'm morphing into... gawd forbid...
...wait... urrr... BIGOT!... ugh, must hold it back... RACIST! ...ugh... can't... stop... must... MISOGYNIST!... urg...
whew... there.
Sorry, kids, my blind hatred had me morphing into you-know-who. I even thought I was an ex-actor, lawyer, journalist for a moment.
Thank gawd, it's passed.
Anyway, what were we talking about?
14 - Shark
- Mr. Shark Explains Everything -
Al, just to clarify and run through some quick historical background on my yellow road to the fake Emerald City, my blind hatred of George W. Bush goes back WAY before he was President, and has little to do with politics except as a peripheral.
I live in Texas. Y'know, very near the publicly-financed/taxpayer gang rape known as The Ballpark in Arlington. It's where the Texas Rangers play, the team George "bought" with other people's money and sold a while later for millions in profit.
Ignore that man behind the curtain!
I find Bush II despicable for the same reasons I find most silver-spoon, princely results of privilege and nepotism despicable. The guy had the business sense of a banana slug; he failed at everything he tried and was constantly bailed out by daddie's friends. Harken was a joke, and anyone looking into Geo II's early finances would conclude that he'd end up on welfare. He had life, fame, and fortune handed to him in one of the most secret and concerted efforts in the latter half of the 20th century. I can prove it with a #2 pencil and a piece of toilet paper.
Ignore that man behind the curtain!
George II was bought and paid for years ago, even before he ran for governor. He's been a puppet since the days he got the gift of 'public figurehead' from the real buyers of the Rangers baseball team.
Ignore that man behind the curtain!
We pinkos went over all this with a fine-tooth comb years ago, and when he ran for President, we pinkos just sat back, shook our heads, and laughed.
Until he won.
More privilege at work, which appropriately enough, stems from the latin meaning 'Private' 'law'.
Ignore that man behind the curtain!
And frankly, Big Al, other than the puppet's TAX breaks, (which are sorta despicable because they're so weighted toward the rich) I would think that most of the Bush junta's actions would send chills down the spine of any good Libertarian.
In conclusion, there's somebody behind that curtain, but IT AIN'T GEORGE BUSH.
Who is it?
Good question.
15 - CW Fisher
Politicians have the same "right" as anyone else to manipulate images of themselves in order to make themselves look good. This is why we wear clothes. It becomes lying when it is a misrepresentation of the truth: for example, Bush serving a plastic turkey to the troops in Iraq. That is a lie. Swirly images of 9/11 mixed with grampa on the porch are not definable as lies since they leave only an impression. LBJ gave the impression Goldwater would drop the bomb, but he never actually said it.
I don't have a problem with presidents requesting photographers to respect certain parameters. I have a big problem when they command it. Or enforce it. It makes me say hm. Makes me curious. Where are the good reporters who get in the car and go take a look?
Are they all on the web, like the FBI?
They've all got cameras on their phones. Most can make short videos. History as it happens will be commonplace from here out. So there's no excuse not to get pictures.
We should be getting pictures on purpose as an act of civil disobedience. Get our ass thrown in jail. Challenge it, because it's wrong. I hear music. Sousa. How I loathe Sousa. I am running, running away.
16 - CW Fisher
Shark, the person behind the curtain is not a person but persons led by the remains of the Reagan administration and "led" de facto style by James Baker. I suspect it's a loose-tight system where rank and position are more cloudy than they appear. For example, Rumsfeld likely outweighs Cheney, in part because he always did. He was a ruthless boss who turned little Dicky Cheney into a houseboy. But Cheney's up there -- way over Colin Powell, who's not even really in the club. Condi Rice is, but more for sentimental reasons. True power, I suspect, is shared very uneasily between Rove, Rumsfeld and Cheney in that order, with James Baker coming in to break ties and kick ass.
17 - CW Fisher
One last thing: Shark's history is good, Al. Molly Ivens, who "hates" Bush, is also a Texan. They've known him longer and they knew him when. Read the biographies. Free at any library. Sorry Amazon. But libraries rule.
18 - Dirtgrain
Al, Karl Rove is a direct descendant of Nazi propagandists brought over to this country by Project Paperclip. With the help of Raelians, he has implanted DNA remnants of Hitler's brain into Dubya's spinal chord. Dubya's true motivation in Iraq and Afghanistan is to find the Holy Grail. He will use it to rend the heavens and raise up the anti-christ, his true, but as-of-yet "hidden," identity. At this point, he will sell out the human race to Martians in exchange for the role of Praetor in the Intergalactic Oil Producers Council (the galactic version of the Carlyle Group). Don't let him do it, Al. Wake up and smell the coffee.
19 - Mark Saleski
gee, and to think i useta think history was boring.
20 - Shark
Yesterday, 361 previously BANNED images of American flag-draped coffins were released to
the memory hole.org for publication on their web site.
The Memory Hole had filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act (how long before the Bush Junta does away with that?).
NOTE: their server is pretty slow at the moment due to traffic.
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